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06/12/2009
The families of Prime Minister Jan Fischer and Interior Minister Martin Pecina have been given police protection in the wake of the biggest-ever operation against far-right extremists. Deputy police chief Jiří Houba described the move as a preventative measure made in view of an expected radicalization of far-right groups following a series of raids against far-right radicals around the country. Ten people have been charged with “promoting a movement aimed at suppressing rights and freedoms”. They are all members of the National Resistance movement, one of the two biggest ultra-right groups in the Czech Republic. Prime Minister Fischer has said that he considers the fight against growing extremism a top priority.
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06/12/2009
The Czech health authorities are bracing for a possible epidemic of swine flu in the country, after the World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic on Thursday. So far only four cases of swine flu have been confirmed, all of them a mild form of the disease that did not require hospitalization. At present there are no plans to restrict travel, although people have been warned to cancel all non-essential trips to high-risk destinations. As EU president, the Czech Republic is cooperating closely with the World Health Organization in planning, coordinating and facilitating measures to contain and mitigate the effects of the disease on a global scale.
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06/12/2009
Actress Kateřina Brožová has withdrawn her candidacy for the Social Democratic Party in the autumn general elections. She cited personal reasons for her decision, saying she wanted to concentrate on her career and have more time for her young daughter. Social Democrat leader Jiří Paroubek, who persuaded the actress to run in the elections, said he was disappointed by her decision, which he considered to be the result of a hysterical campaign against her. The actress came under immense pressure after announcing her decision, with the media questioning her ability to handle the job and part of the Social Democrats publicly refusing to take her on board.
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06/12/2009
The controversial artwork Entropa by Czech sculptor David Černý, made to mark the Czech EU presidency, has gone on show uncensored in Prague. The work, which depicts EU member states through stereotypes, caused a stir when it was put up at EU headquarters in Brussels. Bulgaria, depicted as a squat toilet, tabled an official protest and the image had to be covered with black cloth. Entropa was dismantled early at David Černý’s request in protest against the no-confidence vote that toppled the centre-right government mid-way through the country’s presidency. It is now displayed at Prague's private DOX gallery of modern art.
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06/11/2009
Former Christian Democratic leader and ex-finance minister Miroslav Kalousek has officially unveiled his new centre-right party, TOP 09. The official announcement had been highly anticipated as the party is expected to draw many members from other centre-right parties. TOP 09, which stands for tradition, responsibility and prosperity, will be based on a platform of social conservativism and fiscal responsibility with a strong emphasis on “Europe’s Judeo-Christian tradition”. Historically one of the leading members of Christian Democrats, Mr Kalousek resigned his party membership on account of what he sees as increasing leftward tendencies. Five other Christian Democrat MPs have also left the party, reducing its tally of MPs from 13 to seven.
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06/11/2009
Former foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg on Thursday confirmed speculation he will be taking the leading role in the new party. One of the Czech Republic’s most popular politicians, Mr Schwarzenberg represented the Green Party in the previous government in the post of foreign minister. Speaking at the official presentation of TOP 09, Mr Schwarzenberg said that he recognised he did not have the support of a part of the Green constituency, but that as a former forester he would remain a proponent of that party’s ideals. His migration to the new centre right party is another part of the ongoing reorganisation of many parties following elections to the European Parliament and the reshuffling of the Christian Democratic leadership. The Green Party chairman and vice chairman also resigned this week
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06/11/2009
The state prosecutor has pressed charges against five of the ten people arrested Tuesday in a series of raids on right-wing extremists. The other five men detained have been released from custody. The police said the raids were the culmination of months of investigation into far-right groups in the Czech Republic. If found guilty of ‘promoting a movement suppressing freedom and human rights’, the individuals charged could face up to eight years in prison.
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06/11/2009
One of Czech President Václav Klaus’s closest aids, Petr Hájek, has said that he believes the September 11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center in 2001 may have been organised by the US secret services, reports Mladá fronta Dnes on Wednesday. Mr Hájek made the statements in his new book ‘Smrt ve středu’. President Klaus’s advisor added that he believed Osama bin Laden was nothing more than a media fiction. When questioned about Mr Hájek’s statements, Václav Klaus said he believed this new book was ‘revealing and immensely useful’ in certain respects. Petr Hájek has recently courted controversy by likening Darwin’s theory of evolution to Marxism and casting doubt on the harmful effects of smoking.
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06/11/2009
Academics from Charles University’s Faculty of Arts have found that only one in three Roma under the age of 18 are sufficiently fluent in the Romani to pass the language on to later generations. The study found that roughly the same number have a passive understanding of the language. The head of the research team, Jan Červenka, said even worse results had been expected due to the heavy language assimilation of recent decades. On the whole, roughly half of the Czech Republic’s Roma population is fluent in the Romani language.
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06/11/2009
The French prime minister Francois Fillon has criticized the Czech EU presidency and linked Prague’s governance of the bloc to the low turnout at European elections across the continent this weekend. Addressing the French Parliament, Mr Fillon said that, under the Czech presidency, the European Union had returned to its classic approach of slowly finding the least bad consensus and that this Europe of ‘small steps and compromises’ was ‘wholly unacceptable’. In his damning speech, Mr Fillon said that European citizens did not agree with this approach and had voiced their protest by failing to turn out at this weekend’s elections to the European Parliament. Former Czech Prime Minister and former head of the Czech EU presidency Mirek Topolánek brushed aside Mr Fillon’s criticism on Wednesday. Speaking to Czech paper Pravo, he dismissed Mr Fillon’s criticisms as small-minded.
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